Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondies
These gingerbread white chocolate blondies are great for the Christmas season, but are so fantastic that they should be enjoyed the whole year!
While the flavors of gingerbread and white chocolate may remind you more of the Christmas season than the summer season, let me tell you this: these blondies are worthy of being made all-year round.
I thought these might turn out to be heavy on the molasses and too gingerbread-y but I was wrong.
The combination of ingredients leaves these blondies with a delicious caramel, toffee-like flavor that has a hint of molasses and of course the creamy chunkiness of the white chocolate.
Fantastic. Utterly fantastic.
And a great, unique way to change-up the lovely old brownie that appears often at potlucks and parties.
Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondies
Ingredients
- 2 ¾ cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ¼ teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 ¼ cups (284 g) (2 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature
- 1 ¼ cups (265 g) packed light brown sugar
- ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk
- 1 ¼ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup unsulfured molasses
- 1 ¾ cups (298 g) white chocolate chips
- Nonstick cooking spray
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a 13×9 baking dish with cooking spray and set aside (I lined my pan with aluminum foil and then sprayed the aluminum foil with cooking spray).
- Whisk together flour, soda, salt, and spices in a bowl.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or with a hand mixer), beat butter and sugars on medium-high speed until creamy and pale, about 3 minutes.
- Add eggs and yolk one at a time, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add vanilla and molasses and mix on medium speed until combined.
- Add flour mixture on low speed until combined. Stir in white chocolate.
- Spread batter evenly into prepared pan and bake until golden around edges and toothpick comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
- Let cool completely in pan; cut into 24 squares. Blondies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 1 week.
Notes
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: adapted from Cooking This and That
Hi Mel! I am so glad I came across this oldy but goody! I halved the recipe and baked the bars in an 8×8 pan for 31 minutes – they are so chewy, spicy and delicious! I kept the spices the same amounts – this is the best gingerbread I have ever made! Thanks for ANOTHER terrific recipe 🙂
Hi Mel, I made a batch of these today. (thanks to your forgotten recipes post!) 🙂 I have two questions/comments. But first, I’ll add that I love these!! They’re delicious! One comment though is about the butter and salt. I know you always use salted butter, but that seemed like a lot of salt (1 tsp. in 2 sticks of salted butter, plus the 1 1/4 tsp. table salt). So I looked it up (found the original source of this), and sure enough they say to use unsalted butter plus the 1 1/4 tsp. salt.
The other thing I noticed was the size of the baking pan. Most other recipes call for a much larger pan (like 12×17), which is probably how it bakes through in 25 minutes (and has less of a tall edge). I used my biggest pan, a 10×15 jelly roll, and they baked in about 28 minutes. The edges were just a little tall, but it was relatively flat. Anyway, just some notes for other people who are reading through this post. Thanks for sharing it!
Thanks for your notes, Michelle – I’ll edit the salt because that’s important. 🙂
Monday is National Molasses bar day…while these are technically blondies I think they’d fit the bill because of the molasses in the batter!
Loved these blondies. A nice change from the nomal slightly boreing blondies. I am a caterer and made these all through the holiday season. Cut them in much smaller pieces and sprinkled with powered sugar. Added them to a dessert tray offering. They travel well and are easy to make. I did have to cook them nuch longer. 45 minutes or so.
OH MY GOODNESS! These are SO SO SO GOOD! I can’t stop eating them! I did have to bake them a full 45 minutes . I turned it down to 325 after 25 minutes. And the sides are much taller than the middle. But even the side “scraps” are completely delicious. I got a full 24 bars from the center flat part for our get together tonight. I will definitely be making these again! Wish I had found them BEFORE Christmas. Mel – this one is out of the park!
I’ve made these at least 5 times. I’ve made them for every function that I have to bring something to over the past year. I too have to bake them longer, usually almost 30mins.Seriously most amazing stuff ever. I’ve never heard one complaint about these, EVERYONE loves them!
I’ve made these three times, they’re sooo good. Last time I microwaved them and added a scoop of vanilla ice cream. To die for! They get better as the days go by.
I want to start a club for this website like the club for Martha Stewart and make each recipe…they ALL sound so wonderful:)
P.S. I also had to bake them a lot longer than 25 minutes just like Rebekah, but that’s just because my oven is an ancient idiot. 😉
Wow, made these yesterday and this was my first attempt at blondies; YUM!
The BF even took them to work to show off how awesome is girlfriend is. 😛 I will change the amount of butter next time though, I think Dutch butter is richer than northern-American butter, so there was a lot of fattiness but otherwise I had to stop myself from eating more! Especially since we had also had Penne Alfredo for dinner, so yesterday was a definite butter-day. So, love love love! And I can’t wait to try other recipes like the caramel apple cheesecake bars with streusel topping or the choc-chip cookie dough cheesecake. 😀
Thanks!
Yum! I made these the same day I made something that was chocolate and cheesecake and still ate these 2 to 1 over the next week! The combination was perfect-just enough gingerbread flavor without overdoing it and the white chocolate made it almost a candy. Will not be waiting for the holidays to make this again. Thanks for the best recipes!
4boy*s_momma – that’s a high compliment in my book of these beat out a chocolate dessert. I’m thrilled you loved them!
Made these today….delicious! I did have to bake mine about 35 minutes, not sure what was the deal with that….but they’re wonderful!
Rebekah – glad you liked these!
I made these yesterday for guests. I was a bit worried when I tasted the batter, it tasted way too gingery! And I haven’t had gingerbread anything in years so I guess I forgot what it tasted like. But, after they baked I thought they were great… and everyone else loved them too! Thanks Mel!!
Kensi – I’m glad these worked out despite your initial fears!
I now want iti to snow quickly so I can have an excuse to make these 🙂 Putting this on my Christmas baking list for sur, Mollases Crinkles are my fave so think this will be a much loved to-come.
kelli – I’m so glad these little blondies won your heart. I LOVE them, love them and am so glad you did too. Thanks for letting me know!
Just wanted to let you know, I tried these and also the cheesecake squares for my daughter’s baptism. They were both awesome! The cheesecake squares disappeared in no time, and have become a family favorite already. But these gingerbread blondies won my heart. I love gingerbread, and these were absolutely perfect. Thanks for the great recipes.
I made these this afternoon. They are wonderful! I think I have a new favorite bar cookie recipe! Thanks Melanie! I made the cream cheese truffles yesterday, and they are wonderful and easy! I think I might just try one more recipe and I’ll be ready to deliver goodies!
Melanie- I made a pan of these Sunday for my Sunday school class, devoured. I made a pan again today for neighborhood goodie plates, gone. I’m gonna have to make a pan tomorrow just so I can have some!!
ps- my friend on facebook wrote on his status that I am now leading the neighborhood goodie plate contest (didn’t know there was one, lol!) and dubbed me a brownie witch. So I am transferring my “brownie witch” status to you since this is your recipe. These gingerbread white chocolate blondies are some kinda wonderful, I’ll tell ya that much!!!
BakinBlast – thank you for checking in to let me know that these gingerbread blondies and the truffles have worked out great. I’m so glad! Have fun on your goodie deliveries!
Annebabe – you always make me laugh! I’m so glad these bar cookies turned out for you (and your Sunday School class!). And don’t you dare give away your Brownie Witch status to me – you deserve it and should take the credit!
Anne-Marie Tribbett – thanks for the tip on the jelly roll pans. I’m glad you liked them that way! Merry Christmas to you, too!
We made these tonight and had the same problem of needing to bake them longer (45 minutes, turned the oven down at about 35 minutes to 325). We don’t have a convection oven either, I wonder if that makes a difference. The funny thing is there is another blondie recipe I’ve been trying to get to work for me (it’s very simliar to your chocolate chunk cookies; it has coconut, chocolate chips and buttersctoch chips) and I have the exact same problem with them. So blondies must be finicky in general or I need a blondie tutorial 🙂 We ARE enjoying them despite the issues. Though I will I agree, I am more of a chocolate girl also. We also tried the White Bean Turkey Chili – Yum, easy, pretty healthy I would say too. Thanks for the recipes as always!
Nicole – glad these worked out ok for you, although I wish they would have been stellar! I’m glad you liked the white bean turkey chili!
I’m a new fan of your blog and everything I’ve tried has been delicious. But unfortunately I did run into problems with this recipe. Like several others that commented, I took mine out at 30 minutes and let it start to cool. I couldn’t wait so I cut into it and found it totally not done. Reheated the oven and stuck it back in for another 15 minutes. It’s still a bit gooey in places but quite overdone on the top and edges. I’m not sure what I did wrong, but it just didn’t cook up well. Hopefully others have better luck!
Anissa – it looks like I’ll go back to the drawing board on these to foolproof the recipe a bit more since several commenters have had trouble with the baking time. Thanks for commenting with your input!
Anonymous – despite the longer cooking time, I hope these worked out for you and tasted great.
Baking time is much longer than expected (used a standard GE Profile with no confection). I started at 25 mins then increased 10 mintues because the batter was still moving, then pulled out and cooled completly. Then, went to cut into one to test and realized they were still raw and very sticky so I reheated the oven and cooked 12 mins longer. Once completly cooled again, I cut the bars and most of them in the center still looked raw. I put in the frige to set.
Oh my goodness my daughter made these for us to take to a neighbor. They are so yummy! The neighbor didn’t get many. This is my new favorite homemade treat.
Cammee – you are so sweet. Thanks for the comment on the green curry chicken and naan. I’m very glad you liked it!
What an interesting spin! I’d love to try those. I love brownies and ANYTHING with white chocolate.
These look and sound very tasty.
I’ll admit, the only reason I made these Blondies, is because I needed a treat for Father’s Day and thought it might be a *bit* soon to make Aunt Marilyn’s choco chip cake again. Anyway, I am SO GLAD that I decided to branch out, because these are DIVINE. The flavors together are AMAZING – totally delicious! Another little confession is that I didn’t read through the directions carefully, and ended up mixing everything together in one bowl (instead of keeping the flour mixture separate, and stirring in at the end) it didn’t have any effect on the recipe, they turned out perfectly – and that’s one less dirty bowl, right – ha! I know these don’t have to be a seasonal treat, but I’m already gearing up to wow everyone with them at Christmastime!
Wow!!! Those look delicious!!! I will definately have to try these!!! YUM!!
jfb – well, if I HAD to choose, I’d probably pick the toffee bars because I am a chocolate girl at heart but these are extremely delicious, too. Let me know if you try one of the recipes. Good luck with the crockpot maple ham – I hope you and the fam like it!
Ohhh! These look like heaven!
Wow, I am so honored that you used something from my blog! This makes me want to bake these again right now!
I am sold. I am sure ginger and white chocolate must be an amazing combination to make a dessert!
Queen B. – as ALWAYS, your comment was so fun to read. I’ve never thought of comparing the sounds at my dinner table to cavemen, but it could be applied at my house – not necessarily because my food is that great but because my kids have horrific manners. 🙂 I’m glad you (and the cavepeople) liked the sweet and sour!
These looks awesome!! My hubby loves gigerbread and I love white chocolate–what a great combo!
far be it for me to avoid a recipe simply because some people think the flavors are “seasonal.” i think these sound quite scrumptious, and i enjoy looking at them too–the bold white chips look really pretty against the dark bars. 🙂
Oh wow, I have some leftover molasses from Christmas, this looks like the perfect way to use it up!
I’ve always wanted to try blondies. It’s been on my to bake list for a long time. Yum!
My chocolate loving kids are in trouble. I might not ever make brownies again. I cannot wait to try these, they are being made today!
I made the Chicken with Green Curry and Naan for dinner last night. Even my picky kids ate it! I’ve decided there is not a bad recipe on your site! Thanks sooooo much!
These look terrific!
Oh my goodness, these sound wonderful!! I love gingerbread and it reminds me of Christmas. Can’t wait to try these.
So, it looks like not only did I marry a caveman, I also gave birth to 3 cavemen and a girly ape. I mean seriously….I made your sweet and sour chicken for the first time, and all I heard for the first five minutes were ape like noises !!! mmmmmm..um…mmmmmmm… HELLO ! I mean really My kitchen Cafe, I thought I was a GREAT COOK because I’m obsessed with cooking, but I never heard strange noises at my dinner table before………… hmph !
At the end of dinner, Mr.Caveman said one word….
“KEEPER”.
So, THANKS AGAIN for the awesome recipe!!! YUMMA LUMMA.
Jan – so, so glad you liked these! Thanks for including the changes you made (like mixing everything together in one bowl). I hope it made for a nice Father’s Day treat!
Oh my goodness…these look sooo amazing!! Can not wait to try these!!
I would never think of combining gingerbread and white chocolate …. but I’m certainly up for it. This will be our next treat. Actually I have a stack of print outs of your yummy treat recipes to try but if I made one every other day like I wanted I’ll never loose this baby weight! I have to pick and choose carefully. Which did you prefer – the toffee bars you posted a couple weeks ago or these treats?
I’m making your crockpot maple ham for Father’s Day – I’ll let you know how it goes!
Oh. My. Goodness. These look SINFULLY delicious. If only I could reach through my screen and grab one! Gingerbread and white chocolate sounds like a fantastic combination.